“His voice sounds…” McCoy took a painful breath, struggling to complete his agitated thought.

“Louder. My God, he must be coming closer.” Coltrane glanced frantically around the car. “We can’t stay here. We’re protected only on one side. We have to…”

His vision focused on the charred ruins down the road behind him. He had intended to drive past them and up into the hills on the valley’s far side. The road continued beyond them – to where, Coltrane had no idea, but he had hoped to find a town or a highway. Now the only town available to him was a jumble of fallen burned-out timbers.

Fifty yards away. The distance could as easily have been fifty miles.

“McCoy, do you think you can stand again?”

“No choice.”

In alarm, Coltrane saw a pool of blood when he gripped McCoy’s uninjured left shoulder and worked to lift him. Despite his trim body, McCoy seemed heavier, his body less responsive.

“Here.” Coltrane shoved the walkie-talkie into a pocket in McCoy’s suit coat. “Hang on.” Coltrane grabbed the shotgun. “I hope you’re good at the fifty-yard dash.”

It was more like a fifty-yard crawl. McCoy wavered. Coltrane lost his balance under McCoy’s awkward weight. The two of them collapsed on their knees, the sudden awkward movement preventing one of them from getting hit as a bullet zipped past at shoulder level, sounding like a bumblebee, the gunshot echoing. But Coltrane was absolutely certain that whomever the bullet would have struck would not have been killed. Ilkovic had been vividly clear about his determination to prolong this.

That might work in our favor, Coltrane thought.

“Leave me,” McCoy said.

“No.”

“Save yourself.”

“Not without you,” Coltrane said.

Their first effort had taken them about ten yards. They staggered another five before McCoy collapsed again. Sprawling onto the ashy road, Coltrane tried his best to absorb McCoy’s fall. Another bullet zipped over their heads.

“Photographer.” The guttural voice came faintly, eerily, from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket. “I see you.”

“Come on,” Coltrane urged McCoy, dragging him to his feet. “He can’t aim a rifle if he’s holding a radio.”

Staggering, they managed another ten yards before a bullet nicked the left elbow of Coltrane’s denim shirt. He felt its hot tug and pushed McCoy flat.

“He’s shooting lower,” Coltrane said.

“Photographer,” the gravelly voice said in a singsong imitation of a child playing a game of hide-and-seek. “I see you. I aimed slightly to your left, but you twisted in that direction. I hope I didn’t hit you. Did I? Is it serious? I don’t want to spoil this.”

Coltrane groped along his left arm, feeling the nick in his shirt, fearing he would touch blood. He became weak with relief when he didn’t find any. The weakness lasted barely a second – only until Ilkovic’s deep voice again sounded from the walkie-talkie in McCoy’s pocket.

“Answer me, photographer! How bad are you hit? Describe the pain!”

Coltrane tugged McCoy forward, urged him upright, and lurched forward with him. They were halfway to the jumble of scorched timbers. Two-thirds. Closer. The collapsed buildings loomed, filling Coltrane’s frantic vision. He had the disorienting sensation of seeing them through a lens. The illusion ended when McCoy stumbled and took Coltrane with him. Toppling forward, Coltrane tried to cushion McCoy as they fell over a tangle of blackened beams and crashed among scorched boards. He feared he would cough his lungs out from the thick layer of ash into which he landed. Feeling smothered, he thrashed to get onto his back. He coughed deeper. His eyes stung, watering.

Panicked, he saw McCoy facedown in a pile of ash and grabbed him, twisting him, directing his soot-covered face to the sky. Each time McCoy coughed, he groaned, shuddering from pain. His blood was stark against the blackness.

13

THEY WERE IN A CHARCOAL- FILLED CRATER that was formed by the collapsed walls of an incinerated building.

The shotgun, Coltrane thought. Where is it? I dropped it.

Groping among the brittle burnt ruins, he saw an unscorched chunk of wood protruding from a blackened pile and grabbed the shotgun’s stock, tugging it free. He squirmed in a frenzy toward the crater’s rim, peering warily above it, ready to shoot if he saw Ilkovic coming.

McCoy coughed behind him, straining to say something. “… arrel.”

“What?”

“Barrel. Ash in it.”

Coltrane’s stomach convulsed when he realized what McCoy was trying to tell him. The shotgun had fallen barrel-first among the burnt timbers. Ash and chunks of grit would have been wedged up the barrel. If Coltrane pulled the trigger, the plug might be tight enough to make the weapon backfire. Imagining an explosion of buckshot into his face, he hurriedly reversed the weapon and tensed when he saw that the barrel was indeed jammed.

Hands shaking, he opened the pocketknife he had taken from McCoy and shoved the blade into the plugged barrel – only to flinch when he realized, What am I doing? I’m staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

Desperate, he put on the safety catch. But he still felt nervous about peering down the barrel, and he racked the pump slide under the barrel, ejecting shells without firing them.

Now! he told himself. After peering urgently toward the valley to make sure Ilkovic wasn’t in view, he raised the pocketknife to free the jammed grit from the barrel.

A ballpoint pen appeared before him, McCoy’s left hand trembling as he offered it.

Coltrane understood. The plastic pen would go deeper.

As he pried a thumb-sized chunk of charcoal from the barrel, he marveled at McCoy’s determination. The wounded man shakily withdrew his revolver from the shoulder holster under his suit coat and aimed it toward the valley.

Coltrane was equally shaky. Staring intermittently toward the wasteland beyond where they had abandoned the car, he freed the barrel, wiped each shell before he shoved it into the weapon, and pushed the safety catch to the off position. Feeling a surge of triumph, he aimed toward his unseen target.

“Pump it,” McCoy forced himself to say.

“What?”

“You need to rack a shell into…”

Coltrane’s surge of triumph dissipated. In its place, he felt a dismaying humility. He had forgotten that after loading the shotgun, he had to work its pump to insert a shell into the firing chamber. Otherwise, the weapon was useless.

“Right.” Pulling toward him on the handgrip beneath the barrel, Coltrane heard the satisfying snick of a shell being seated in the firing chamber. “Good to have you along.”

“Wouldn’t have missed it.”

Coltrane aimed toward the wasteland, reminding himself that a shotgun was a short-distance weapon. Ilkovic would have to come within fifty yards before Coltrane’s gun would be effective. In the meantime, Ilkovic’s rifle gave him the advantage.

“Where is he?” Coltrane demanded.

“Maybe…” With tremendous effort, McCoy finished his sentence. “… coming behind us.”

A shadow loomed, but when Coltrane whirled, he saw only a continuation of the wasteland. The shadow had been caused by clouds – dark clouds. Throughout his effort to reach the scant cover the ruin provided, Coltrane had paid no attention to the roiling clouds drifting from the west. The ground, not the sky, had been what concerned him. But now the sky was definitely a concern. It was going to rain.

Hearing something scrape behind him, he whirled again. And again he saw nothing. The sound had been caused by a breeze against two charred boards.

The breeze turned into a wind. The clouds darkened.

“The storm will keep us from seeing him.” Coltrane kept glancing nervously toward the area behind him. “Do you have the strength to watch this side while I watch over there?”